"'So, madam,' said the good Mrs. Lacy, with simplicity, 'you must not think that the guinea a-week is any thing more than an advance on our part--there will be money enough to repay us--or my dear Miss Ella would never, never have taken it. She would die in the street first, she has such a noble spirit of her own. She told me to provide for her sister's debts,--she had made an arrangement with a publisher to be a regular contributor to a certain periodical,--she had likewise produced a few rather popular novels. To effect this she had indeed labored night and day,--the day with her pupils, half the night with her pen. She was strong, but human nature could not support this long; and yet labor as she did, she proceeded slowly in clearing away the debt. I cannot quite account for that,' said Mrs. Lacy, 'she dressed plainly, she allowed herself no expense, she made no savings, she paid the debt very slowly by small instalments, yet she worked herself into a decline. There seemed to be some hidden, insatiable call for money....'" If the lady who was recounting all this, had looked at her listener at that moment, she would have been moved, little as she liked him. A wild horror took possession of his countenance--his lips became livid--his cheek ghastly--he muttered a few inarticulate words between his teeth. But she was occupied with her own reflections, and noticed him not. "This could not go on for ever," said the lady, presently. "She was obliged to throw up her situation; soon afterwards the possibility of writing left her; and she was brought here, where I found her." "And that it was--that it was, then!" cried the wretched man. 'O Ella, my child!--my child! I was living, in indolence and indifference, upon her hard-earned labors! I was eating into her life! And when the supply ceased, I--I never knew what it was to have a heart!--I thought she was tired of ministering to her father's wants, and I came to England to upbraid her!" "It was too late. She was gone where the wicked cease from troubling, and where the weary are at rest," said the lady. "You need not--you need not--my heart is hard, but the dagger has pierced it at last. You need not drive in the steel: it has done its work," he rather gasped than said. The lady felt that she had been too severe. His apparent insensibility had, it is true, irritated her almost beyond bearing, after all he had done, and after all that had been suffered for his sake. "I am sorry if I give you pain. I ought to be sorry for you, not angry." "Did she never mention me?" he asked, in a tone of agony. "And there was another, on whom her young heart doted, only too fondly. Did she never speak of either of us?" "She spoke of both." "Tell me what she said." The lady hesitated. "I pray tell me--I can bear it."